SOURCE: "The Contemporary Novel," in Modern English Writers: Being a Study of Imaginative Literature, 1890-1914, Sidgwick & Jackson, Limited, 1919, pp. 355-416.

In the following excerpt, which was originally published in 1918, Williams provides an overview of Hichens's novels in which he judges their relative strengths and weaknesses. There are aspects in which the novels of Mr. Robert Hichens are not unlike those of Mr. Conrad. He combines elements of romance, of realism, and the study of motives, causes and mental phenomena. When a young man he came to London to become a student of the Royal College of Music; but by a happy inspiration he chose the moment when the aesthetic movement was at its height to publish a witty and spirited satire upon its extravagances. The Green Carnation (1894) was the book of the moment and a popular success. It deserved its success, for it was...